


From the Wreckage

by allfireburns



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Community: writerinadrawer, Gen, POV Third Person, Past Tense, Season/Series 03-04 Hiatus, WriterInADrawer 4.02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-18
Updated: 2010-06-18
Packaged: 2017-10-10 04:21:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/95439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allfireburns/pseuds/allfireburns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gwen returns to the Hub for the first time since the explosion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From the Wreckage

**Author's Note:**

> The version of this story posted for writerinadrawer had to be cut down to fit the word limit; this is more or less the original version.

When her mobile rang, Gwen was out of bed, phone in hand, before she even registered _why_.

"I'm here." She glanced to the clock: eleven at night. Well, that was four hours of sleep, at least. She wondered vaguely when she'd started considering that an accomplishment.

"Did I wake you up?" Martha asked. "I didn't think you'd be asleep this early."

Rhys blinked at her from the bed; she gave him a tight-lipped, 'business-as-usual' smile and slipped out of the bedroom. "You did, but I'm awake now. What's wrong?"

Even with Martha and UNIT's help minding the Rift, the past few months had set Gwen's reflexes on a hair-trigger. It was always one crisis after another, and not enough resources, not enough time, and _never_ enough sleep. Martha only surprised her with the fact that it _wasn't_ an emergency.

"It's just... they're saying it's safe to go in now. You said you wanted-"

"I'll be there in twenty minutes."

* * *

"I made sure no one touched anything inside, beyond making sure the ceiling wouldn't collapse on our heads," Martha informed Gwen as they stepped into what used to be the tourist centre, and was now simply the least damaged entrance. "I thought you'd rather sort through it yourself."

"Thank you." It took a long hallway and a series of stairs to get to the Hub proper, or what was left of it. Gwen barely breathed as they made their way down, and when they finally stepped out into the great cavern, she found she _couldn't_ breathe. The rubble above had long been cleared away - down here, it was a chaotic mess of scorched stone, twisted metal, shattered glass. She swallowed hard. Would there actually be anything worth salvaging?

Something silvery caught her eye, incongruously bright in the wreckage. She picked her way over, and pulled it out of the debris - a thin plaque of some alien alloy, undecipherable symbols on one side. She turned it over in her hands. The back had no symbols, just letters crudely carved in the metal: S.T.T.L.

"What's that?" Martha asked over her shoulder. Gwen handed it over absently.

"Found with some old Roman burials - I guess they used it as a gravemarker. We never had time to translate the alien writing." The letters scratched on the back, though - that, Ianto had translated for her. _Sit tibi terra levis._ May the earth rest lightly on you.

Gwen smiled wryly, her gaze moving slowly to the gaping chasm in the ceiling they hadn't yet closed over, where floodlights from the Plass spilled into the wreckage. Some superstitious part of her couldn't help seeing it as an omen, that a gravemarker was the first undamaged thing she found. Although when it seemed the weight of the world rested on her shoulders... So long as she was being superstitious, maybe it could be a blessing instead.


End file.
